‘The Newsroom’ delivers the goods

In the opening scene of the new Aaron Sorkin drama “The Newsroom,” premiering on HBO on Sunday at 10 p.m., smart but glib cable news anchor Will McAvoy (Jeff Daniels) has a “Network”-lite public meltdown. After giving an honestly acerbic opinion about the flaws of the US political system — in a move that seems like career suicide — a viewer might think that McAvoy is mad as hell and is not going to take it anymore.

It turns out that he, more realistically, is cynical as hell and is willing to take it for at least as long as the ratings hold up. But the man who has been dubbed “The Jay Leno of news anchors” — an insult meant to infer laziness and pandering, not funny headlines — gets a shock to the system when his new executive producer turns up in the form of his old lover, MacKenzie McHale (Emily Mortimer).